Sir – Hojjat Ramzy was misguided in his remarks in Westminster calling for long-cherished rights of free speech in the UK to be curtailed (Oxford Islamic leader calls for limit to the right of free speech, February 12).

Though Dr Ramzy deserves respect for his recent condemnation of Islamist atrocities and his affirmation of free speech in general, he now goes too far in suggesting people’s religious beliefs should somehow be above ridicule. There are many today who consider any belief in supernatural beings and infallible prophets – whichever names are attached – to be intrinsically ridiculous, and we must never be denied the right to say so now and again, whether in words or in cartoon form.

To give ground on this principle to one all-too-easily affronted religious minority would be to undermine a fundamental principle of the post-Enlightenment culture we share with our European neighbours. Cartoons have for centuries mercilessly mocked personalities, causes and religions of all kinds - in the past often more insultingly than today – and to suggest that religion should now be accorded special immunity is to misunderstand what it is to be British. Dr Ramzy is quoted as saying ‘Muslims believe it was totally wrong to allow Charlie Hebdo to insult our prophet or Pope Francis’ (my emphasis), which – if accurately reported – hints at a level of state supervision of what people can say or write that is alien to modern European values. Muslims – indeed believers of all faiths – simply have to accept that as the price of living here, and I believe most willingly do. Respect for people and their undoubted right to hold religious beliefs should never mean we can’t make fun of those beliefs.

Robin Gill, Oxford